


The One Where Everyone Is An Organic Chemist

by alovelylittlescandal



Category: The Avengers (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Professors, all of the cookies, lab rats, organic chemistry is awesome except when it isn't, organic chemists eat their feelings, science phobics welcome, this is also my life, this is how real science works guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylittlescandal/pseuds/alovelylittlescandal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Tony and Charles are rival organic chemistry professors. There are also cookies. Science phobics are welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Everyone Is An Organic Chemist

**Author's Note:**

> Done for leupagus's 'Damn Your Fandom Is Good At What You Do' fest, on LJ and Dreamwidth. I thought it would be interesting to accurately portray how real scientific research works for once.

There are cookies on the conference room table.

They are good cookies too, the store bought sugar cookies with thickly layered frosting—the kind that glues your teeth together when you eat them and leaves food coloring on your tongue. They are not Tony's cookies and normally, that wouldn't deter him but he is trying this new thing where he doesn't take things that don't belong to him.

Or rather—they belong to Charles Xavier's lab and Tony thinks the guy can kill him with his mind, wheelchair or not. And also, Tony's lab doesn't need a worse reputation than they already have.

It is not Tony's fault that the University decided to dump all of the oddities and leftovers into his lab, and make his life more difficult than it already is. He rubs the pacemaker on his chest absently, thinking of p waves and the QRS complex. He has an EKG appointment later today.

No wonder why no one ever loved him. The love went straight through the hole in his heart.

But there are sprinkles on the cookies, damnit.

Red and blue sprinkles, and he is going to steal them for his lab, his bunch of misfits and weirdos. The kids on the playground that no one ever wanted to play with. And it said a lot about Tony's lab that the other scientists thought they were strange, because hey, ever hear about throwing stones at glass houses?

Xavier's reputation as a creepy prescient prodigy speaks for itself. Lehnsherr is strangely obsessed with platinum—even for an organometallic chemist. And Richards might have a hot wife, but he definitely spent quality time in high school getting well acquainted with toilet bowls.

Tony turns the doorknob to the conference room door.

They aren't called the Avengers for nothing.

It starts with Xavier—whose lab calls themselves 'The X-Men'. Tacky, right?

But his lab doesn't agree and like the petulant children they are, demand a lab name. He spends a week (flagrant propaganda campaign, really) trying to convince them that 'Stark's Men' is equally as cool. (And it's not sexist, Natasha, because you're one of the guys, anyway.)

He is vetoed unequivocally.

When Tony comes in, he is completely unsurprised to find Xavier sitting at the conference table, fingers to his temple.

Xavier opens his blue eyes, and the smile softens the lines of his exhausted face.

'Ah, Dr. Stark.'

The only other person who has called him Dr. Stark was Dean Coulson, and even he stopped within two weeks of getting to know him. Mostly people call him either "Tony" or "Asshole" because "genius billionaire organic chemist" is a mouthful.

'You, uh, eating those?' Tony points to the plastic container of cookies.

'They are for my lab meeting,' Xavier says pleasantly. 'Was there something you wanted?'

'The, uh, cookies, but never mind.' Tony scratched his head. 'I'm just gonna go.'

'Actually, there was something I wanted to discuss with you.' Xavier's tone brooks no arguments, and Tony wheels around.

'Yeah.'

'Raven found a broken tube in the NMR machine. Your lab was the last one to use it.'

Tony closes his eyes, thinking of how many time he has told them about the proper depths for samples. It's elementary, and frankly beneath him to keep telling them over and over again.

'Right. I'll get Rhodey to fix it.' Rhodey is the Chem Department's longsuffering equipment manager, and as he likes to remind Tony, has a doctorate and is not Tony's personal whipping boy.

'It might be good to review the proper protocols,' Xavier says, fingers inching off his head. Guy must have an awful migraine problem, because he's always sitting at a table, eyes closed, fingers on his temple. 'It's incredibly inconvenient for my lab.'

'Right,' Tony says again. There's only one 500 MHz NMR machine for all four of the research labs in the department: Tony's lab, Xavier's lab, Lehnsherr's lab and Richards' lab, which Tony doesn't even like to count as a lab because there are only four of them.

'You might want to keep an eye on your undergraduates. Remind them that other people need to use the equipment.'

'Right.' Tony smiles and nods. Pleasantries threaded with your incompetence astounds me and I can't believe you call yourself a professional are weaved into Xavier's parting words.

He escapes out of the conference room, and strides down the hallway.

Tony finds his lab racing around on spinny chairs.

They stop when he enters the room, flushed in equal parts embarrassment and pride.

Natasha is the first to rally. 'So if we change the ratio of petroleum ether to—'

'Which one of you used the NMR machine last?'

Four hands point to Clint, who is standing at the whiteboard, drawing reaction mechanism arrows with disturbing precision.

'That'd be me.'

'You broke a NMR tube.'

'No, I didn't,' replies Clint calmly. He looks down at his article and writes '57% yield' underneath his expected product. 'I let my sample run, and collected it like a good little boy.'

'Then why the hell is Xavier blaming us?' Tony demands. He's not actually expecting an answer.

There's a logbook for a reason: so they can blame the right person when shit hits the fan. Ostensibly, it's for funding purposes, so that bigwigs know where their grants are going, but really, it's for evidence. Tony thinks resentfully of Lehnsherr's evil lab, who don't document properly and are clearly out to get the rest of them.

He'll have words with Lehnsherr later, by which he means he'll say something about the machine, and Lehnsherr will glare hard enough that he can taste the German nein.

'Tony, I'm having problems with my TLC plate,' Bruce says, handing him the piece of glass and silica. 'I can't tell which fraction it belongs too.'

Tony squints at the pencil marks, and slides the plate underneath the purple light of the UV machine. Two faded dots, right on top of one another.

'It's a mixed fraction,' Tony says. He winces, mentally, waiting for Bruce's inevitable meltdown. Bruce is his thesis student, and a proper genius, but even geniuses can't sway organic chemistry. 'Just put it aside and put together the other fractions to rotovap down.'

Bruce scowls and throws the TLC plate into the glass disposal. He clenches his fist as his shoulders begin to heave.

'Someone take care of that,' says Tony, fidgeting and looking meaningfully at Steve.

Steve's his PI, the guy who babies the undergraduates and soothes wounded egos. Tony's good with organic molecules, and glassware, but throw him a thesis student in crisis and he's properly fucked.

Thor, bless his big, Norwegian heart, takes Bruce by the shoulders and leads him out into the hallway so he can break down in peace.

'I'm going to get cookies,' says Tony.

They misappropriate Xavier's conference room, taping a sign that says 'The Avengers' over the window, and eat Oreos, Chips Ahoy! and NutterButters (for Thor, who hates chocolate).

Not much organic chemistry gets done, and all their products might be contaminated, but they have sugar. And, sometimes, that's all that matters.


End file.
